The Madison Strangler, Part II

No one who has followed the Wisconsin Supreme Court really expected any justice to be done in the investigation of Justice David Prosser putting his hands around the neck of a female justice who had ordered him out of her chambers.

The venomous malice between four right-wing justices who control the majority and their three more liberal colleagues has been public for some time.

The open hostility turned physical on June 13 when minority Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Prosser of putting her in a chokehold in a dispute witnessed by all but one of the other justices.

Even if a special prosecutor had filed charges against Prosser, no one seriously expected anything to happen to him. The final decision would go to the Supreme Court itself and Prosser's right-wing majority has no qualms about ignoring their own improprieties.

As it turned out, the official closing of the case made the court look even worse and Prosser even creepier.

First, you had Republican special prosecutor Patricia Barrett announcing not only that she wouldn't charge Prosser, but she wouldn't charge Bradley either.

Prosecutors sometimes have to publicly acknowledge they do not have enough evidence to try an accused perpetrator, but it is absolutely bizarre to also announce the victim won't be charged.

What could Bradley possibly have been charged with—battering Prosser's hands with her neck?

None of the justices present, not even Prosser and his three majority colleagues, ever claimed Bradley laid a finger on Prosser.

But the full picture of just how bad this court is became clear in the individual testimony by the justices to investigators.

Prosser's statement had a kind of chilling, hallucinatory quality, as if he couldn't quite imagine how his hands came to be around the neck of a woman:

"Justice Prosser said, 'I remember feeling her neck.' Justice Prosser went on to say that he remembers the warmth on the side of Justice Bradley's neck in his hands as his hands were touching her neck."

After that little reverie, Prosser finally seems to realize what he's doing.

"What does any self-respecting man do when suddenly that man finds that his hands or part of his hands are on a woman's neck?" Prosser says. "Get them off the neck as soon as possible."

Of course, the other thing any self-respecting man does who somehow finds himself in such a bizarre situation is to immediately apologize.

Prosser didn't do that then, and he still refuses. Prosser says he feels he did nothing wrong.

That's odd since Prosser also said he agreed with Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs, who met with the justices several days later and told them it was never appropriate for a man to put his hands on a woman in the workplace.

Any woman in a work environment understands that. So would any man if his wife or daughter were the woman who found a colleague's hands around her neck.

The Court's Disturbing Actions

Because the witnesses were Supreme Court justices who are supposed to decide cases based on facts, it was particularly disturbing how several of the justices tortured the facts to try to protect Prosser.

Justice Pat Roggensack, one of Prosser's majority, was close enough to get between the two of them and pull Bradley away from Prosser. Yet, she claimed Prosser never had his hands around Bradley's neck, something not even Prosser denies.

Roggensack described some kind of hand trick where Prosser's thumbs were on the front of Bradley's throat "but his hands and his fingers were pointing straight up and were never around her neck."

What? And miss all that warmth?

Justice Michael Gableman has always had difficulty with the truth.

Gableman ran a racially charged television commercial accusing his opponent, Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler, of freeing a child molester who then assaulted another child. It never happened. The man served his entire sentence.

Gableman didn't see Prosser put his hands around Bradley's neck either. It looked like her shoulders to him.

Gableman also perceived Bradley as much taller than Prosser. He compared the two of them together to a photograph of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson leaning over a fellow senator to intimidate him over a vote.

When Bradley moved toward Prosser, ordering him out of her chambers, Gableman said, Prosser was "looking up" in "shock and surprise" and raised his hands to defend himself from big, bad Bradley.

At 5 feet 3 inches tall, Bradley is half a foot shorter than the 5-foot-9-inch Prosser.

The right-wing majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court makes up new facts just like it makes up new ethics rules and new laws to allow their own campaign contributors and Republican legislators to get away with anything they want.

Prosser is just one petty, volatile human being. The corruption of the court is much bigger than him. It's choking justice itself in Wisconsin.

Prosser was just defending himself from being violently attacked by Bradley. Yes Joel, women to beat on men, even in the workplace. Joel, you weren't there. Sounds like you have this tunnel vision that its just impossible for a liberal female judge to be just as creepy as a conservative male. Remember it was the liberal capitol police that cleared him. Most guys can relate being viciously attacked by a woman while she screams "stop hurting me" at the same time. Its a dirty trick women like to pull. Not sure if it happened here but it sounds similar. This is usually a sign of bipolar or some other mental disease. Do we really want an angry out of control person that runs violently screaming with fists raised towards other justices sitting on our supreme court bench? Not sure was Prosser said to her to tick her off but he must have hit a nerve. I think Joel just can't get over the fact Prosser won the election after embarrassing Kadiddlehopper after she declared victory before all the votes were counted.

Joel, did you do any research at all on this issue? Did you read Walsh-Bradley's statements? She completely skipped any mention of the hands on the neck, commented about "workplace safety" as if that were the issue, and repeatedly mentioned "now that there are no charges pending..." She was not indignant in any way, as a real victim would be- especially one with the entire media behind her, backing her ridiculous story.
Why do you think this was passed from official to official until it landed in the lap of a Republican prosecutor NOT up for re-election? It passed through the hands of several Democrats who could easily have brought charges against Prosser- if there had been any actual wrongdoing. Which is the key. The idea was to dump it into the hands of a Republican, who would dismiss it based on the FACTS, thus allowing gullible morons on the left (Joel McNally) to cry politics.
So answer this- why did several Democrats pass up the opportunity to mete out the justice that was so richly deserved by Walsh-Bradley? Perhaps she was the on the wrong end of the potential "justice". The FACTS make it sound that way- like she charged at a fellow justice like a child on a playground or a gangbanger on a street corner.

I think if Prosser was a liberal Joel would be defending him. I'm sure Prosser is no angel but this liberal rag is nothing but constant Republican bashing. After awhile the negativity of the writers gets boring. Never any positive suggestions on solving problems. Its like Oh My Gosh, someone got a donation!, someone put their hands on a womans neck, someone is against handouts to the lazy!! The sky is falling!!! If we could just figure out how to tax those gosh darn rich white people, life would be beautiful.

He's an angry, jealous bitter man who feels he and his friends are always getting the short end of the stick. Give him an inch and he takes a mile like he did in this article. Likes to blame others, mostly conservatives, for his own failures. He suffers from minority envy and despeately tries to gain the acceptance from those even more misfortunate than him. They've seen his kind before, driving Beetles around the south with a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. They roll their eyes and laugh at him. You know, the kind of guy who always sets the bar low. The kind of guy that just can't hack it in competitive world and prefers the safety nets provided by his enemies. This guys a walking Bible story on how not to be.

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